Hello,

The items I have already purchase are italicized and in bold. I’m having difficulty selecting a case and a PSU (wattage & brand). I’m hoping you could help me out with this. This is my 1st PC build.

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I53570K
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819116504

Motherboard: ASUS SABERTOOTH Z77 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131821

Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 670 FTW 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card 02G-P4-2678-KR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814130787

Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Black 1 TB SATA III 7200 RPM 64 MB Cache Internal Desktop Hard Drive Bulk/OEM - WD1002FAEX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136533

Memory: CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Low Profile Desktop Memory Model CML8GX3M2A1600C9
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820233186

SSD Hard Drive: Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 20-148-442

CPU Cooler: COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 EVO RR-212E-20PK-R2 Continuous Direct Contact 120mm Sleeve CPU Cooler Compatible with latest Intel 2011/1366/1155 and AMD FM1/AM3+
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835103099

Optical Drive: ?

Case: ?

Power Supply: ?

Is there some ad or review that makes people buy the Sabertooth and overshoot the motherboard by about $100, as it always seems to pop up...

Optical Drive: Give Pioneer a try. Robust, my DVR-215 makes a smooth rumble compared to high-pitched buzzsaw sounds I've gotten from LGs, Sonys, Lite-Ons and so on.

Case: Fractal Design R4 / NZXT H2 / Corsair Obsidian 550D etc. (link) Take a gander and see what style and features you like. Don't get anything with too many holes/windows or sans sound insulation.

Power Supply: The SeaSonic G Series SSR-550RM should fit the bill from Newegg's selection, as money seems to be no object. The 360 W sibling reviewed very well on SPCR.

1. Anything in http://www.silentpcreview.com/Recommended_PSUs? You don't need 600 W - that's a real-life test of a maximally overclocked setup with a ridiculous CPU. Your target is more like 500-550 W (80-82% efficiency, get Gold or Platinum with even higher efficiency to make sure), and people have made do with even less (a certain hi-power passive 400 W PSU setup comes to mind).
2. Aftermarket coolers are superior to stock when it comes to silence, especially under load. Consider a higher grade of cooler, since you seem to have the budget (Thermalright Macho maybe?).
3. SSDs are unbelievably quick compared to HDDs. In fact, there is no comparison. I've had a laptop go from booting for 30 s to two blinks (2 seconds). I would get an SSD for OS drive, no contest.
4. If you get a case with SPCR approved fans, you probably won't need extras, except if you want to replace the cooler's fan (the CM budget model you currently have selected needs a swap IIRC). Separate sound card or DAC is my personal preference.
5. You went and chose a big hulking ATX motherboard for a one card setup, where you could easily have made do with mATX or even ITX. Damn right you're going to have to have a full tower now.

PS. Anandtech offers a similar testing setup but with a more comprehensive selection of cards: http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph5818/46562.png (from this article). How there is a 100 W discrepancy to the X-Bit Labs results I can only guess, but I like to use the X-BL readings as a Worst Case Scenario.

This system uses 317 W during gaming, and that's with a hot running, overclocked 3960X CPU and a 670 GTX.

Your system will use about 250 W at most. Pick a 400 - 500 W quality PSU and you'll be fine, unless you're going to do some heavy overclocking.

Here's my suggestion:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817151119

Edit: I see Das_Saunamies made some editing, well it's a good thing we came to the same conclusions about the PSU model!

Yes, I have some bad ninja habits when it comes to post editing.

Great minds and all that.

1) First, let me say that you don't need 600W. Find a quality PSU with 400-500W and you should be fine. Other than the Seasonic G550, there's also the Seasonic X series which are semi-passive, i.e. the fan only spins up at a certain power consumption. These are quality PSU's. Kingwin also makes good PSU's.

2) If you value quietness, yes, definitely.

3) Much faster! You can probably find some reviews which show you the boot up time. If your budget allows you to buy the mentioned the CPU and GPU then an SSD should be mandatory.

4) I don't think so.

5) Well, you need an ATX-compatible case. Luckily, there are many good ATX-cases that cost ~100 USD. Fractal Design R4 comes to mind.

Best bang for the buck on both parts.
Get the cooler, best $30 you can spend to reduce noise.
Bootup time and programm starts are reduced, you can feel the difference. If you have the money get the SSD.

Blu-ray or not? I recommend Pioneer and LG, Samsung has crapped out on me.

A well ventilated and dampened case. Fractal Desing R4 or Antec P18X. The board you selected is ATX so you need a tower case.
Realistic power draw is 200W GPU,+ 150W CPU abour 350W. Seasonic G550G even a G450 would be fine. X-series PSU only start the fan on higher loads, I doubt you can tell the difference if you don't replace the graphics card cooler.

Thanks for all the advice so far. I just bought the SSD drive and I'm about to get the cooler.

I'm basically looking at 550 or 650 watt PSU at the moment. It seems that Corsair is the most popular choice.

For additional internal components I might not have thought of, what about a fan controller or a sound card? From everything that I have read, it doesn't seem that a sound card is worth it in most instances.

I for one vehemently oppose integrated codec chips. Such I/O space hogs, and even my cheap Logitech USB sound card has beat the chips on two decent recent motherboards in sound quality and interference shielding, not to mention functionality (mic works off the bat). A good sound card or DAC is even better.

Last time sound chips were any sort of decent was when SoundStorm roamed the Earth (nForce 2).

Hardware fan controllers should be redundant here - and pretty much anywhere, now. You'll be in good hands with the included Thermal Radar software, as it looks to have similar or identical functionality to Fan Xpert.

I have an additional question:

1) Are internal memory card readers obsolete?

I guess I need to decide on whether I'm going to get a sound card as well.

Anything with a memory card you can probably hook up easier and faster via USB.

I cannot confirm any of this. Been using onboard sound for 5 years now and never looked back.

OT, but here goes...

That's human adaptability for you. I think my monitor looks great, too, until I see monitors with actual colour accuracy and better viewing angles. My ears just couldn't take the Realtek chips, whereas my eyes can take the cheap panel.

A snippet from the SS Wikipedia page, my emphasis (for general information, not as proof - it's just Wikipedia): "To achieve SoundStorm certification, a motherboard manufacturer had to include the nForce APU and include the necessary discrete outputs. It was also necessary to meet certain sound quality levels as tested by Dolby Digital sound labs. [...] Furthermore, in the absence of a formal certification process, there is little incentive for motherboard manufacturers to use the quality of components necessary for high fidelity output. It needs be considered that from a purely technical point of view, there is no reason why onboard sound from motherboards without the nForce APU and SoundStorm certification cannot reproduce non-processed sound such as an MP3 or CD without effects applied, as well as can a SoundStorm certified nForce2 motherboard."

These days it's just a codec chip and whatever for testing. As long as sound comes out, many people are happy. There's no technical reason why it would be worse, but we can all see why it more than likely is. Unlike with $1000 hi-fi amps and $599 cables, you actually do get value for your money when buying a sound card or DAC.

Except Creative. Contemporary Creative is an exercise in self-harm.

Summa summarum: up to one to discover what they need and want. I'm all for exploring the options, and I think we're all here because we wanted some acoustic improvements to happen.

At least Biostar is trying with their Hi-Fi motherboards. Dunno if they're any good tho.

Onboard sound is fine as long as you didn't surrender to the hifi-virus once your pc couldn't be heard anymore.

If you listen to music with equipment not overly expensive, you'll probably won't notice any difference. But if owning a decent set of stereo speakers and amp and so on, you'll quickly discover that buying a higher quality soundboard is well invested money.

...and then there are snobs that will tell you any compressed media sound like sh*t and only vinyl is true high fidelity. That's the thing with these part-mystical things: there's always a geekier geek who proclaims he can detect even more fidelity.

Or people who in light of all the double-blind studies that find that outside of sound engineers nobody can hear the difference between a 192 kbit/s MP3 and an FLAC will say that while they might not be able to tell the difference on the spot, FLAC produces less hearing fatique. You know, something less measurable.